Job Structure at University of California

Defining jobs using consistent definitions of function, category and career level allows accurate pay comparisons with other employers in our labor market for comparable jobs.

Job Structure Overview

The UC Job Structure organizes job titles into occupation-specific groupings called families (e.g., Information Technology, Finance, Student Services). Within each family are more specific groupings, called functions, which contain different levels of responsibility and scope:

Career Tracks Illustrated

There are multiple paths to success. The following chart is a sample of possible career paths within our well defined UCSC Job Structure.

This chart illustrates career mobility in the Career Tracks structure.
Every job in the Career Tracks structure will fall within a cell on the chart.

Career Tracks supports the development of career paths that enhance career mobility and development by defining clear options for next steps in a career progression within a job function.

Some History

Career Tracks was first developed at UC Berkeley as Career Compass. In the late 1990’s, UC Berkeley, along with the entire UC System, was challenged by an old job classification system where job titles were generic, did not reflect the person’s occupation, and were not easily compared to the outside labor market. Career paths were difficult to plan, and employee development plans were not always linked to common job requirements in a systematic way. After several years of job structure design leading to the mapping process, all carried out with extensive involvement across the Berkeley campus, we now have a system in which:

The structure provides clear level distinctions and the Generic Scope allows for consistency across job families.

In the fall of 2002 Berkeley's Vice Chancellor Burnside stated, "My dream is that the work being produced by the Office of Human Resources and SISC (Staff Infrastructure Steering Committee) will result in a system of job classification and compensation that will be fair and equitable as well as responsive to the market. It will provide managers with tools to evaluate and encourage performance and provide staff with clear linkages and paths for their careers, so that people will feel better about working here."